NATO Hopes Joint Probe Will Ease Strained Afghan Relations

NATO spokesman Brigadier General Richard Blanchette announced a joint probe between coalition forces, the Afghan government and the United Nations into a Herat air-strike earlier this month that stands as one of the largest incidents of US-inflicted civilian casualties since the 2001 invasion of Afghanistan. He hoped the investigation would allow the sides to reconcile widely differing accounts of the number of civilians actually killed.

And while the White House has expressed its “regret” at the loss of innocent lives, the Pentagon has stood stubbornly behind its initial announcement: that only 30 people were killed in the strike, that at least 25 of them were “militants”, and that an important Taliban commander was among the dead. Military officials say that false claims of slain civilians are often spurred by the fact that the military offers compensations to families. Such compensation doesn’t always come with an admission of wrong-doing, but $2,000 was paid to each family after US forces killed dozens of civilians in a previous incident in Herat in 2007.

The Pentagon’s narrative is difficult to square with quotes from those on the scene. One Afghan official told the AFP that he had personally seen the bodies of at least 50 children being pulled from the wreckage, and assisted with pulling dozens of other bodies from the rubble. Afghan officials have attributed the attack to a false tip by a rival clan.